A rare 1936 ESTP school registration picture of the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was published yesterday. But did Chabad alter the picture? Was the yarmulke added in by Chabad? As you can see in the full size image posted below, it was.
This is the Rebbe's ESTP school registration photo (circa 1936, Paris, France) posted by Chabad.info yesterday. As you can see, the yarmulke was photoshopped in by Chabad. In the real photo, the Rebbe is bareheaded – and bald. Here's Chabad's doctored picture:
Chabad does this type of distortion of history to protect the "honor" of the Rebbe – and to promote the official image of him to hasidim.
What the picture shows, however, is that the Rebbe did NOT trim his beard at the time the photograph was taken. The lack of a yarmulke was mandatory. All official registration pictures were taken bare headed.
That said, I can now publish for the first time in history the photo the Rebbe had taken immediately after the official photo. It has for years been held under close guard in a vault in Chabad's main library in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It was stolen from the Chabad library late last week. (Yudel, that isn't me in the security cam video. Really. It isn't.)
This is what the Rebbe actually dressed like in Paris. It helps explain why ESTP threatened to expel him due to poor grades, and it may also be the reason why B.G.'s diary (great reading, by the way) often refers to the Rebbe simply as "Dude":
[Hat Tip for Chabad's faked yarmulke photo: I'm A Planet!]